For $40, those who couldn't be astronauts see Mars One as their chance.

Aaron Hamm, an assistant hotel engineer who deals with HVAC, cooling systems, and maintenance, lacks the traditional qualifications to be an astronaut. But that doesn't mean he wants to stay on Earth. "I felt… I was discouraged as a child [from becoming an astronaut] just because of how unbelievably competitive it is,” Hamm told Ars. “I’m a very intelligent person and I’m driven to try and achieve my dreams but, at the same time, I felt like it was an really unrealistic goal to try and pursue. As smart as I am, there's always plenty of people that are smarter.”

Hamm, an Ars forum user by the name of Quisquis, has just applied for the private Mars One colony program. For him, a large part of the appeal is that the program seeks a different type of astronaut.

Aaron Hamm, would-be Mars colonist.

“I think that the Mars One mission and the idea of going somewhere that you're not coming back from for life… that's different than the general astronaut program,” he said. Hamm also emphasized his own pioneer spirit, which he will need if accepted—there’s no return journey planned for Mars One colonists.

A new horizon

Mars One is a private space mission that hopes to send a group of people to Mars in a decade and leave them there to foster the first human colony. It has received endorsement and support from the likes of Gerard ’t Hooft, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. But it has also been criticized on several counts, including treating a serious life-threatening scenario as a reality show for the purposes of monetization and seeking funding while being glib about nearly all the practical details.

Before applicants even get to see the application, they must pay an application fee of around $38 USD (the price varies depending on country of residence). They fill out a public-facing profile and answer several private questions about achievements and awards, incidents that have frightened or stressed them out and how they dealt with them, personality types they find difficult to handle, and how they deal with cultures other than their own. To date, 30,000 other Red Planet hopefuls have applied.

“I want to see the sun rise over a completely new horizon, in a completely new sky. I think that's worth any price,” wrote Erica Meszaros, another Mars One applicant, in her personal essay.

Meszaros is a software developer by trade and interned with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. She states that astronauts are traditionally chosen “from the Air Force” or—more recently, with the success of $200,000 per flight projects like Virgin Galactic—from “those with deep pockets.”

Part of Mars One’s pitch has been that much of the technology for traveling to and maintaining residence on Mars already exists; it’s just a matter of marshaling resources and initiative to get there. Both Hamm and Meszaros echoed this sentiment. Despite being publicly vague on the details, Mars One leaders maintain that they know the cost of the mission ($6 billion) and that it can all be assembled and launched in 10 years.

All applicants make a video as part of their public facing profile discussing, in brief, why they want to or are suited for a mission to Mars. "I have a great sense of humor, so I really get along with everybody," said Francisco, a 32 year-old Argentinian man who works in "the commercial area at a plastic containers factory."

"I’ve got a feeling that I don’t belong here, but out there,” said Anders, a 51-year-old Swedish man who has the most popular profile on the site. “What makes me the perfect candidate? Well, I’m single. I’m flexible."

"I believe that the challenge that I’m putting up with everybody… If anybody can challenge me with the knowledge and all the things that I can do, then I give up, but if not, I would like to be the first one to go,” said Vasile Sofroni, a 54-year-old Romanian man with the second most popular profile.

The technical viability of the project has been repeatedly called into question, though detailed critiques are hard to come by because the project is so vague (the New York Timessummed up the general feeling in a recent article that talked about the "significant skepticism" that Mars One "has raised in some quarters").

Critics also criticized Mars One for its attempt to turn the trip into an extravagant and potentially dangerous reality TV show. The first round of the application process allows people to vote on applicants based on their public profiles to push them through to the next qualifying round (though there is not, per the current design, any public involvement going forward).

Erica Meszaros, another would-be Mars colonist.

But neither Hamm nor Meszaros see themselves as fame seekers. “I don’t, right now, have a strategy for progressing, other than trying to get across my passion… for this endeavor,” Meszaros told me. Hamm said that he has been pushing his application and name out on sites like Facebook (“my friends are already a little tired of it”) but notes he has “never applied to another reality show.”

Worth the risk

By now, Mars One has proven that there are sufficient number of people who don't need to know any technical details for about the potential chance to live on Mars. Tens of thousands have plunked down cash to throw their would-be astronaut helmets into the ring without needing virtually any concrete information.

But should space travel push come to reality entertainment shove, aren’t applicants at least a little afraid of—how to put this delicately—either a fiery space death or a frigid Martian death?

“The purpose that I would be pursuing is so much greater than myself,” Hamm said. “I think the benefit to humanity is overwhelming of those fears.”

Promoted Comments

I'm kind of curious what the public is expecting to see at this point... everyone panning the program seems to expect that they should be able to see blueprints and budgets or something.

Even if Mars One executes exactly as they plan to, no one who isn't intimately involved in the project is going to see that level of detail.

And I think everyone should take a moment to remember that 10 years before we landed on the Moon, we couldn't even launch a rocket into space...

That's a fair response, honestly. Ten years prior to Apollo 11's landing, NASA was a fledgling agency and Project Mercury was still a few months from officially kicking off.

The skepticism from a lot of folks is good old fashioned Internet truculence, yes. However, remember also that at its height, Project Apollo and its associated programs directly or indirectly employed about 400,000 people and consumed 2.2% of the total federal budget (one source, though there are many others). A lot of people are viewing Mars One's goals through that lens: if it took that many billions to get twelve people to the moon, how much more will it take to get to Mars?

Our perception of space travel is colored by past missions. Mars One's estimate of a $6B mission seems ludicrously low in light of what other government-funded space agencies across the world have spent to accomplish far smaller goals. Costs will be lower than a government-run mission for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the notoriously porky nature of manned space flight (that army of 400,000 civil servants and contractors spread across North America didn't come cheap), but $6B still seems a little light. Looking at their technology page, they anticipate saving huge amounts of capital by operating as payloads on Falcon Heavy launch vehicles (which should, if all goes according to plan, be man-rated by design) and by using Dragon capsules in a variety of roles. Good for them. This is obviously predicated on Falcon Heavy being brought into operation on time, and solving the issue of actually landing on Mars (there's no method so far that's been tried that'll work for living cargo, for one reason or another, at least not without serious compromises in payload). This means they still will need to finance multiple Falcon Heavy launches, multiple Dragon vehicles, and also at least one Mars Transit vehicle. Also, they'll need to design and manufacture environmental suits (nothing off the shelf will work for them, including anything in NASA's current inventory), rovers, and all the other things listed on that page.

There's another factor, too: with once exception, every human being who's walked on another world has been an extremely skilled pilot or naval aviator (and the one exception, Dr. Harrison Schmidt, was trained and rated on supersonic jets after his acceptance to the astronaut corps). This kind of background made them not just adept at flying planes and stuff, but also powerfully sharp observers and communicators, able to process lots of inputs simultaneously and make very fast and informed decisions in response to rapidly changing situations. Beyond being incredible pilots, most were also bloody brilliant--Buzz Aldrin, for example, holds a PhD from MIT in astronautics and his thesis, "Line of Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous," formed the groundwork for much of NASA's rendezvous procedures during Project Gemini. Every person we've sent to plant those flags and make those footprints has been ridiculously skilled people, trained by the absolute best methods that could be devised by a battery of brilliant experts using effectively unlimited funds.

And contrasting that, Mars One is holding a public lottery and wants to sell the TV rights to the training and mission. It doesn't conjure up images of bold exploration so much as it does broken dreams and farce.

Their plans for mission sustainability--and, I'll of course grant that I don't know anything other than what's been publicly released, so maybe they've got a workaround for this--are contingent on other suppliers to provide transport. Assuming they can vault the initial hurdle and actually set four souls down on Mars, those folks' survival depends on the very, very nascent commercial space industry to keep them from dying a slow death. Maybe that's what it'll take to accelerate commercial space into viability, but I think it's going to come back to that oldest, truest adage of space flight: no bucks, no Buck Rogers.

Maybe I'm having such a hard time with it because it seems fantastic and silly and in real life, fantastic silly plans usually meet harsh un-funny ends; maybe the mention of TV automatically poisons my entire picture of the project. Maybe I'm just a pessimistic ass with a dried-up soul and a hopelessly atrophied sense of wonder. I dunno. But I can't help but see Mars One held up in comparison to the space race; the US spent more than a hundred billion 1960s dollars to send the best to the moon, and now we're gonna canvas the internet for folks who want to go to Mars and make a TV show out of it.

This just seems like an impossible project, and not the good kind of impossible project that ends in the triumph of overcoming blah blah blah. If they even manage a single launch, I'll eat my hat.

Catastrophic system failure. The electrical, heating, O2 production, or Water production systems fail in a non-repairable manner.

With the exception of available redundant systems, this would result in a fairly swift death for all the colonists.

Gradient issues:

Food, water, or O2 intake is greater than production.

These are issues that can be solved in the planning stage, but if they're not, they can also be solved on site in a variety of manners (including one of the crew sacrificing themselves for the good of the mission). I've already determined that if someone needs to do that, and I decide that it's going to be me, I'm going to go find out what it smells like on Mars...

Less morbid solutions include diverting electricity from non critical systems to electrolysis (for o2 issues), to lighting over the plants (to increase photosynthesis & by extension food production), or to driving more soil into the melting unit to produce more water.

Pinhole air leaks:

Over time, it is possible that the hab develops leaks. With proper planning, they can be easily tracked down and repaired. For example, there could be sensors on the outside of the hab that detect greater than normal concentrations of O2 in the atmosphere. That would allow you to both detect small leaks, and locate their general position.

Sabotage by a psychologically unstable crew member:

This is again something that probably would cause the death of the entire crew if it occurred. However, with extensive testing prior to launch, I think that it would be possible to weed out the people most likely to not be able to handle the remote environment. Additionally, if the person is identified on mission before anything occurs, there may be medical remedies available.

Disease:

There is a possibility of contracting some disease that is not able to be treated on Mars due to the lower standard of medical care available. This could effect any number of the crew, and has the potential to be all over the place with regards to how it risks the success of the mission. The best that can be done for this is good medical training, common medicines being made available via supply shipments, and sterilization of as much as possible prior to launch.

All of these dangers are real, but with good planning and redundancy, none of them guarantee the failure of the mission.

100 posts | registered Dec 2, 2011

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

So, let me get this straight: global warming could increase the average temperature on Earth by a few (maybe a few tens of) degrees. So our solution to this is to move to a planet where the average temperature is around -55C, with variations between 27C and -143C? Even if we could terraform the entire planet to have everything Earth does, its still going to be farther from the sun, and thus just as cold. I just don't see how Earth could possibly get as bad as Mars is now, so I'm not sure what we're supposed to be gaining here.

If nothing else, a second chance for life from Earth when the next world-ending catastrophe happens?

QuisQuis, I agree with your feelings about the importance of going, obviously, but when I was a little kid, the Planetary Society and other groups at least were coming up with basic designs for ships, designs for habitats, and so on, before asking for any funding. NASA did a bunch of this, too. But this isn't signing on to Kickstart a colony, it's giving money to people who apparently haven't even thought through many of the basic obstacles and hazards, nor apparently even researched what's been studied already, and knowing that without billions more in funding, it's all for naught anyway. And look at the people they want to send -- well, you can't, yet, but it'll people first selected by ballot, not people who have cross-trained into several disciplines, so that they can take over other peoples' jobs when accidents happen. And will the colony size be big enough to contain enough genetic diversity to remain viable, or is it planned that more people will be coming later? What if nobody else and no supplies can come for 6 months/2 years/6 years/a decade/never? And all of these people will need to exercise quite a bit to keep muscle and bone mass up, so these will all need to be people who are in great health and are either athletic or willing to become that way, and...

I dunno. If they wanted people to join a club for $40 that would talk about these issues and join up with other organizations to lobby governments for real colonization efforts, I could see doing that(in fact the Planetary Society apparently has a basic $37 membership level). But these people have come to you promising things that honestly, you probably don't even believe yourself. If you don't really believe them at the outset, what is the point, and why should anyone trust them with more money?

I've looked into this 'Mars Mission' and honestly it looks like a cult to me, if it's not a scam. Honestly assuming they can even get into space the odds of them making it to Mars are tiny, but let's say they did, the way they are suppose to live once there is scary, and the odds of them lasting more then a few weeks a minuscule.

I want off this mudball as much as the next geek, but throwing away your life on a pipedream? not a good idea.

The whole deal would be a little less laughable if they had any kind of information or plan to give besides a powerpoint presentation with some CG scenes on it and a sign that says "WILL GO 2 MARS 4 $$$".

I understand that Mars is a longterm goal, but why don't we ever think to do a trial run of a colony a little closer to home?

Like the Moon?

Close enough to rescuse, in theory; a good place to test the equipment for living; and excellent place to practice manufacturing in a low gravity environment.And a great place to launch further exploratory missions to our solar system.

Am I missing something here? (Aside from the glory OMG Mars?)

Edit: Hell its even close enough to run a "Space Tourism" business for those with deep pockets.How much would you pay to spend a week on the moon?

It is a fantasy everyone's dream so what's the point to believe it or not to believe it?

It really doesn't matter what is this going to ended up. But still, it's hell of a fun, right? Wouldn't the money $38 he/she has spent on this mission a lot more worth than your $40 spent on a membership it didn't even get you so much publicity? At least it got his and her pic on Ars article - FREE, and be the talk of the town for years to come. Oh yeah, there will be more article on this topic to follow. Their names would be on all the Reality TV shows and on its flight lists, permanently, go or no go, right? Can't get any bargain than that for $38, right?

"Great grandpa, was that you signed up for the Mars One, 50 years ago? You are my hero."

"Yeah kid, memory.. memory.. sweet memory.. sweet.. sweet..".

ZZ ZZ zzz zzz zzz zz......

"Leave grandpas alone. Never mind the Mars mission, he's even too old to wipe himself up after toilet."

Are you sure this isn't a method to round people up for a "B Ark", as described in the Hitchhikers Guide?

I think there will be an overwhelming self-selection criteria that gets borderline manic depressives who are super-excited about trading in their shitty Earth-bound existence for a shitty existence... IN SPAAAAACE!Not the people I'd trust with a future of my billion dollar space programme.The people who I would trust are not the sort of people who'd pay $40 to what looks like no more than some Martian dating site / Reality show scam.

Plus, it's never going to happen. What the hell are they going to eat up there for the rest of their lives. Farming doesn't work that well on Mars and moving lots of mass (food or stuff to make it) to Mars is really hard and really expensive.I love the way that private spaceflight is developing, but it's best use is improving existing technology and cutting away the waste. Going to Mars will need NASA-sized budgets and planning.

I also like how the "risks" section of their website handwaves away the take off and landing as being well-understood tecnology. Yeah, we've landed one little rover on Mars, using an insanely complex skyhook system. How hard can it be to scale that up into a full martian colony? We've totally got this covered.The whole site seems to assume that going to Mars is just a scale-up of shoving a satellite in space, rather than something that's orders-of-magnitude more difficult than anything we've attempted so far.

Keep in mind that they don't really have to take all the food. They can take trinkets, glass beads, whatnot, and trade with the natives. Water will be easy to get hold of, with the multiple streams of this rich land.

And I think everyone should take a moment to remember that 10 years before we landed on the Moon, we couldn't even launch a rocket into space...

The first US launched rocket to reach space was in 1946.

That was on the back of decades of German research and engineering which cost billions and was followed by more decades of primarily military work which cost many more billions before Apollo became a reality.

So, let me get this straight: global warming could increase the average temperature on Earth by a few (maybe a few tens of) degrees. So our solution to this is to move to a planet where the average temperature is around -55C, with variations between 27C and -143C? Even if we could terraform the entire planet to have everything Earth does, its still going to be farther from the sun, and thus just as cold. I just don't see how Earth could possibly get as bad as Mars is now, so I'm not sure what we're supposed to be gaining here.

If nothing else, a second chance for life from Earth when the next world-ending catastrophe happens?

Even after the worst mass extinctions in Earth history, this planet would still be a much easier place for humans to live than Mars. We would still have some supplies of liquid water, we would still have more suitable temperates, we would still have some sources of food, and we would still have an atmosphere that wouldn't be immediately lethal to those exposed to it.

Surely, dying a frozen or fiery death is discouragement enough for me. To paraphrase what General Patton once said, "War is about killing your enemies for your country, not being the poor bastard that dies for his country." This is not war, but the sentiment still applies

This is at best assisted suicide or at worst a scam. I will not be watching a TV "reality" show of a bunch of nutters either being "trained" on Earth or going insane in space.

Only when (if) we can send autonomous robots to the Moon who can build a habitat in advance of human arrival will colonisation be possible.Would *you* like to work all day in a spacesuit? How long before you run out of patches to fix your leaky suit?

Personally I get very grumpy if I have not been able to take a shower for a few days, being crammed in a box with a bunch of smelly people does not interest me.

What would happen if there are bacteria on Mars that cause some form of illness, dysentery for example ?How long would your supply of medicines last before the diarrhea kills you?

Most importantly, on Mars there is NOTHING THERE! No Air, nada. My advice is DON'T GO!

I wanted to be an astronaut as a kid. Then my sister told be about the Challenger.

From what I've read, most of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo astronauts fully expected to get blown up at some point. The people throwing down $38 fully expect to die on Mars.If I didn't already have a family they'd have my $38. It'd be worth that much just for the chance to dream that I might get picked. Screw the odds of success.

Were I to colonize another planet...these are not the people I would want with me. Seriously, I'd want to be part of a team where I'm the weakest link, and everyone's way the hell smarter, more physically fit, better-trained, and coming from a background of far more relevant experience than I.

As a planet system, Mars offers nothing but a far more limited supply of sun radiation and some meagre, albeit poisonous, atmospheric protection. That's about it.

By comparison, Earth is indeed a luxurious EDEN, the only one of its kind of which we are aware. I call it 'The Miracle Planet' because it is.

Perhaps we should send the majority of humanity to Mars to live, or die, for a decade if only to hammer into their heads exactly how brilliantly good we have it here on Earth, our only home. Maybe then we'd stop pumping out babies and turning Earth into a rotting wasteland of extinction and climate catastrophe.

We humans, as a whole, have to be the single most stupid creatures to exist on Earth specifically because we are so incredibly incapable insight into exactly where we are and how we fit into it. Instead we live inside our little inner worlds, reside inside the abstractions of our minds, and ignore the outer reality, treating it as our own individual object of exploitation, warfare, abuse, excretion and dumping. We're already well beyond the Earth's carrying capacity, well on our way to destroying the entire place and us along with it. You can't get more stupid as a living being.

So please everyone, GO TO MARS! You'll hate it there. It will WAKE YOU UP.

Or here's another idea: We humans require a big, nasty, deadly, pervasive predator to force our evolution into a far more intelligent, mentally healthy and insightful creature.

Those people expecting this to be 'Survivor on Mars' would do well to think again. Unlike Survivor, once on Mars, they can't call quits and return to 'civilization as they know it', or vote anybody out (well I guess you can boot people out of the airlock, but that scenario is highly unlikely, see below).

Based on the FAQ, there are only a crew of 4 sent on each mission. These 4 people will have trained together as a group for about 8 years. That's more than enough time to overcome any differences between individuals.

Furthermore, the group is assembled based on chemistry between the individuals. If Mars One really wants a real shot at sending people to Mars, they'd pick people who can work with each other properly. (but if what they're after is ratings, then they'll be tossing the most controversial members in the same group to create some drama as usual)

I would expect them to be a solid team who has each other's backs at the end of the training program, not a bunch of gossip girls who scheme behind each other's backs.

I checked, and it only costs me $16 to apply (less than half of what QuisQuis paid). Not sure if I should bite the bullet and apply yet, but it's looking mighty tempting to me

Were I to colonize another planet...these are not the people I would want with me. Seriously, I'd want to be part of a team where I'm the weakest link, and everyone's way the hell smarter, more physically fit, better-trained, and coming from a background of far more relevant experience than I.

Then why would we take you along?

Hey, I'm just the baggage handler who took a nap in the hold without realizing it was launch day.

This is absurd. We don't have the tech to build a spacecraft capable of this, yet. 10 years is not enough time to design, build and stage the thing. Also, some of the people applying are not young and in the 10+ years (they think) it will take they will be starting down the path of physical deterioration, not an optimal situation for flying a minimum of 4 months in a cramped vessel.

It's just a scam.

[edit]

And I was just talking about the "getting there". What about the supplies they will need to construct dwellings? Oxygen generation? Air filtration? Hydroponic labs? Etc... Even NASA talked about having to launch multiple vessels in a such a mission, to get the supplies there before the people arrive... 6 billion USD? No way.

I can't help but wonder what would things be like 1000 years from now if this is successful. Mars population would consist of the descendants of the original colonists. Would they have genetic deformities because of inbreeding? If the original colonists consist mainly of reality TV types, would an Idiocracy type civilization be the result?

All joking aside, I think the only way for humanity to expand beyond our planet is for the expansion to be based on economics. Humans have always spread out based on the search for a "better life" and "better opportunities". So if Mars does not offer a chance for a "better life" for its people then it will never really be colonized -- instead it will just be an experiment or science outpost.

I really cannot believe how many naysayers there are about this project. Maybe this will work, maybe it won't, maybe it will work just long enough to get everyone on Mars killed in the first week. Okay. So? Why all the screaming about it being a scam, or guaranteed doomed just because you don't personally know all the details?

While governments are dragging their heels and defunding their space programs, there's a company trying to get our species off the only planet it's ever known. This is not a bad thing. This is something we should celebrate. Are there some things about it that are weird like the reality TV whatever? Sure, but that just means they have good business sense. Nobody's ever getting to Mars without money, and corporate sponsorship is just one way of doing that (such as through advertising on a reality TV show). And don't let the "TV personality" types of applicants fool you. There's surely more than a handful of serious applicants with serious skills in the pool.

As for the cost, remember it's a one-way trip. One-way trips to Mars are inherently much less costly because you don't need to land an ascent vehicle on Mars or have enough fuel for a trip back to Earth. Think about the Martian gravity and atmosphere for a second, and the distances involved. NASA would spend a heck of a lot more money because NASA would want a return trip. This project only needs to worry about getting there and surviving there. It's a very different problem set, but not one that needs extensive new research and development. Most of the problems facing this project are already solved or close to it. All they have to do is buy all the pieces and put them together. This trip also can cut corners on some stuff because they don't have the same level of government and public accountability. That's not to say they'll completely disregard the safety and health of the crew, but the risk is assumed to be a lot higher than a NASA mission and thus failure is more acceptable. The crew knows they're not coming back. They know they're going to die on Mars. They're going to have a sense of wonder and exploration as they go and see how long they can last.

I thought Ars Technica readers were nerds. We should be the ones supporting projects like this, not tearing it down. This is a noble endeavor! We have ten years to see how this turns out and they have ten years to work out any issues and impress us. Why not just wait and see? Why the rush condemn it, especially in light of so many other successful commercial space ventures lately?

I remain skeptical (always about all things), but optimistic and enthusiastic about humans—at long last—on another world in my lifetime. More of you should be smiling.

I really cannot believe how many naysayers there are about this project. Maybe this will work, maybe it won't, maybe it will work just long enough to get everyone on Mars killed in the first week. Okay. So? Why all the screaming about it being a scam, or guaranteed doomed just because you don't personally know all the details?

While governments are dragging their heels and defunding their space programs, there's a company trying to get our species off the only planet it's ever known. This is not a bad thing. This is something we should celebrate. Are there some things about it that are weird like the reality TV whatever? Sure, but that just means they have good business sense. Nobody's ever getting to Mars without money, and corporate sponsorship is just one way of doing that (such as through advertising on a reality TV show). And don't let the "TV personality" types of applicants fool you. There's surely more than a handful of serious applicants with serious skills in the pool.

As for the cost, remember it's a one-way trip. One-way trips to Mars are inherently much less costly because you don't need to land an ascent vehicle on Mars or have enough fuel for a trip back to Earth. Think about the Martian gravity and atmosphere for a second, and the distances involved. NASA would spend a heck of a lot more money because NASA would want a return trip. This project only needs to worry about getting there and surviving there. It's a very different problem set, but not one that needs extensive new research and development. Most of the problems facing this project are already solved or close to it. All they have to do is buy all the pieces and put them together. This trip also can cut corners on some stuff because they don't have the same level of government and public accountability. That's not to say they'll completely disregard the safety and health of the crew, but the risk is assumed to be a lot higher than a NASA mission and thus failure is more acceptable. The crew knows they're not coming back. They know they're going to die on Mars. They're going to have a sense of wonder and exploration as they go and see how long they can last.

I thought Ars Technica readers were nerds. We should be the ones supporting projects like this, not tearing it down. This is a noble endeavor! We have ten years to see how this turns out and they have ten years to work out any issues and impress us. Why not just wait and see? Why the rush condemn it, especially in light of so many other successful commercial space ventures lately?

I remain skeptical (always about all things), but optimistic and enthusiastic about humans—at long last—on another world in my lifetime. More of you should be smiling.

I would rather establish a robot colony on Mars prior to sending out colonists. The robot colony can set up the habitat and construct buildings, gardens etc. Once we have a sustainable habitat, then we can send out the colonists. And the robot colony can greet and welcome the colonists when they get there. They can even rescue the colonists if something goes wrong.

Whether its an odd-ball idea that is pure fantasy or the real thing, it doesn't matter. What matters is that there are still people out there with the pioneer spirit. If it wasn't for them, where the heck would we be?

Just my two-cents.

I agree, the people signing up definitely have the pioneer spirit. And true to form, they're getting scalped.

I'm still trying to figure out how $38 is such a terrible rip-off... many people spend at least that much on a Saturday night at the bar. Sweet, you just blew $40 so you can wake up the next morning without a single memory of how you did it. I've already gotten a value return greater than one night of drinking from my $38.

And that's why it's called "getting scalped". Just a little off the top, you see. But think of it from their perspective... $38 times 30,000 applicants... that's a lot of nights of drinking.

I understand that , but they've already stated what they would do with the money if they don't reach their goals. I can't find the quote atm, but they said that they would donate all money to other space exploration endeavors.

I'm not going to get on your ass for thinking that I'm getting scammed; I suppose that could be the case (I can't imagine that there wouldn't be a huge backlash against the people behind Mars One if that ended up being the case though). Like I said in another post though, it's $38. I'm barely out anything, so I'm not concerned.

Hey, if you want to put your faith in these people, more power to you. It's your money, you can waste it however you like.

It's probably safe to assume the vast majority of applicants aren't astronomers, geologists, etc. who can at least try do anything meaningful while on the planet, and who may do research on the planet to interest them and occupy time.

They don't need the vast majority of applicants to be astronomers, geologists, etc., since the vast majority of applicants aren't going to Mars.

Why does everyone assume they're going to send the most worthless people, or that the most worthless people will even be able to complete the training?

I really cannot believe how many naysayers there are about this project. Maybe this will work, maybe it won't, maybe it will work just long enough to get everyone on Mars killed in the first week. Okay. So? Why all the screaming about it being a scam, or guaranteed doomed just because you don't personally know all the details?

While governments are dragging their heels and defunding their space programs, there's a company trying to get our species off the only planet it's ever known. This is not a bad thing. This is something we should celebrate. Are there some things about it that are weird like the reality TV whatever? Sure, but that just means they have good business sense. Nobody's ever getting to Mars without money, and corporate sponsorship is just one way of doing that (such as through advertising on a reality TV show). And don't let the "TV personality" types of applicants fool you. There's surely more than a handful of serious applicants with serious skills in the pool.

As for the cost, remember it's a one-way trip. One-way trips to Mars are inherently much less costly because you don't need to land an ascent vehicle on Mars or have enough fuel for a trip back to Earth. Think about the Martian gravity and atmosphere for a second, and the distances involved. NASA would spend a heck of a lot more money because NASA would want a return trip. This project only needs to worry about getting there and surviving there. It's a very different problem set, but not one that needs extensive new research and development. Most of the problems facing this project are already solved or close to it. All they have to do is buy all the pieces and put them together. This trip also can cut corners on some stuff because they don't have the same level of government and public accountability. That's not to say they'll completely disregard the safety and health of the crew, but the risk is assumed to be a lot higher than a NASA mission and thus failure is more acceptable. The crew knows they're not coming back. They know they're going to die on Mars. They're going to have a sense of wonder and exploration as they go and see how long they can last.

I thought Ars Technica readers were nerds. We should be the ones supporting projects like this, not tearing it down. This is a noble endeavor! We have ten years to see how this turns out and they have ten years to work out any issues and impress us. Why not just wait and see? Why the rush condemn it, especially in light of so many other successful commercial space ventures lately?

I remain skeptical (always about all things), but optimistic and enthusiastic about humans—at long last—on another world in my lifetime. More of you should be smiling.

I would rather establish a robot colony on Mars prior to sending out colonists. The robot colony can set up the habitat and construct buildings, gardens etc. Once we have a sustainable habitat, then we can send out the colonists. And the robot colony can greet and welcome the colonists when they get there. They can even rescue the colonists if something goes wrong.

Spend some time doing some damn research before you pan Mars One then, because robotic assembly of the hab before the colonists arrive is already part of the plan...